This invention relates to arrangements for generating hydrogen and/or hydrogen peroxide from waste heat, such as that passing up an industrial stack or chimney.
A recent book which has generated much interest in Washington, D.C. and throughout the country is entitled, "Energy Future", and was edited by Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin. This authoritative book includes the following quotations:
"There is a source of energy that produces no radioactive waste, nothing in the way of petrodollars, and very little pollution. Moreover, the source can provide the energy that conventional sources may not be able to furnish. To be semantically accurate, the source should be called conservation energy to remind us of the reality--that conservation is no less an energy alternative than oil, gas, coal or nuclear. Indeed, in the near term, conservation could do more than any of the conventional sources to help the country deal with the energy problem it has." PA1 "As two prominent analysts, Lee Schipper and Joel Dormstadter, have expressed it: `The most impelling factor in encouraging conservation action is the cost of not conserving`." PA1 "It is well known that vast amounts of energy are radiated up industrial stacks into the air--or into lakes, rivers or oceans. This is called waste heat/energy." PA1 "At a typical electric utility generating plant, up to two thirds of the fuel's potential energy is lost as discharged waste heat. Meanwhile, industrial waste heat has been estimated at 20 percent of total national energy consumption."
In the same book it is stated that the energy consumption in the United States in 1977 when converted into equivalent barrels of oil per day, is equal to approximately 36.7 millions of barrels per day, with each one million barrels of oil per day being equivalent to approximately 2.12.times.10.sup.15 BTUs per year. Using the figure of industrial waste heat being in the order of 20 percent of the total national energy consumption, this means that we are wasting in this one area along, approximately 7 or 8 million barrels of oil per day equivalent, and this corresponds to about 15.times.10.sup.15 BTUs per year. Assuming a conservative cost of about $2.00 per million BTUs, the annual loss is more than $3.times.10.sup.10 or over 30 billion dollars for the year 1977.
Although various proposals have been made for utilizing the waste heat lost going up the stacks of chimneys, up to the present time commercial efforts to recover this waste heat and to convert it efficiently and economically into useful forms of energy have not justified the investment.
Accordingly, a principal object of the present invention is to provide an economical manner of directly recovering the wasted heat and providing the recovered energy in a useful form which may be readily and conveniently employed.